


Girl With the Broken Smile

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Children of War [5]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Blood, Character with PTSD, Gen, I'm not tagging it as serenadeshipping, Post-Series, Self-Harm, Serena's got a crush~, Speculation, but it begins with this story, but there is also cute hand-holding, healing is a process
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7930366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serena thinks Yuzu could cut her nails forever, as long as Yuzu keeps holding her hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girl With the Broken Smile

**Author's Note:**

> This is the shortest thing I've written for the series so far, but honestly it didn't need to be any longer than this.

Serena wakes up in the middle of the night with Yuzu’s fingers tight around her wrist and Yuzu’s voice pleading with her to wake up.  Serena’s nails are scraping against her ear, and Yuzu drags Serena’s hand away from her head. She tucks Serena’s hand against her chest and murmurs that it was just a nightmare.

Serena feels something move in her ear. “S-something’s in there,” she says through chattering teeth.

“That’s probably the blood,” Yuzu says.

Serena’s head does feel wet, and warm…she looks at her hand, still clutched in Yuzu’s, and realizes that her nails are covered in blood.

“I’m sorry,” Serena says, her throat tight with unshed tears.

Yuzu sits up and tugs Serena up with her. “It’s okay,” Yuzu says. “Come on, let’s go get you cleaned up.”

Yuzu leads the way across the room and into the bathroom connecting her room with Serena’s. They’ve lived in the new house for a month now, and Serena has yet to actually sleep in her room. She’ll take her online lessons there, she’ll play with Hyperion there, she’ll keep her clothes and books there, but she won’t sleep there. She has to sleep with Yuzu, or she can’t sleep at all.

This is the first time in a week Serena’s woken up with blood gushing from the unhealed scratches on her ear, but it sure isn’t the first time in the last few months. In fact, Serena’s lost count. She knows enough by now how to clean up, though, and she strips off her t-shirt and kneels next to the bathtub, her head hanging over the drain. The tank top she wears under her shirt every night for this very reason is thin, and she shivers as the cool air hits her bare arms.

Yuzu detaches the shower head and turns the water on. Once it warms up, she turns the nozzle so that the water flows gently, and she lets the water flow over Serena’s ear. The water turns pink as it drips down from Serena’s head, and once the blood is gone Yuzu is able to get a good look at the damage. She gently touches the open wounds, brushing Serena’s hair out of them, and fresh blood stains the water yet again.

“It’s not so bad,” Yuzu says as she turns off the water. She presses a clean towel to Serena’s ear, and Serena puts pressure on it as Yuzu stands and gathers antibacterial cream, gauze, and tape.

Serena sits up and her head spins. She shuts her eyes and presses her free hand to her forehead, then her mouth when he stomach churns. When she opens her eyes again, Yuzu is sitting in front of her.

“Do you need a minute?” Yuzu asks.

Serena shakes her head and removes the towel. She lays down on the hard floor, her head in Yuzu’s lap. She doesn’t flinch when Yuzu applies the cream to the open wounds, she’s past feeling any pain after this long. Yuzu covers her ear with gauze and carefully tapes it just below Serena’s hairline. Yuzu could probably do this her sleep, and guilt stews in Serena’s gut. This has happened since before the end of the war, the only difference is now Yuzu has actual medical supplies to clean and bandage Serena with. When they were fugitives in the Fusion dimension and Serena woke up at night with blood streaming down the side of her face, Yuzu would clean her up with damp tissues, wet with whatever clean water they could spare, and wrap bandages made from stolen, ripped-up uniforms around Serena’s head. Yuzu used to sidetrack from their given missions to break into houses and search frantically for rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to clean the wounds with. Now she has everything she needs right inside the bathroom.

“All done,” Yuzu says, smoothing down the final piece of tape.

Serena sits up. “Thanks,” she whispers, her head lowered. She moves to stand, but Yuzu stops her with a hand on her knee.

“Let’s try cutting your nails.”

Serena lifts her head. When she’s really determined to go after the parasite that she’s sure is in her ear, nothing they did in the past could stop her. In her sleep, Serena would tear off any bandages placed on her ear, she’d remove gloves from her hands, she’d rip off wrappings and hats and anything else Yuzu tried to use to keep her ear or hands covered. Serena looks at her nails. She’s still got blood under them. Her nails always break, so she’s never actually cut them. In fact the one time she tried, she quit before she started. She’s never been able to do it, and she doesn’t know why.

“I mean really short,” Yuzu says firmly. “Probably shorter than you’re comfortable with, but we have to try something. I’m sure that one day it won’t be like this, but until then…”

Serena lowers her head again and curls her fingers around the hem of her shirt. The right side of her head, from her temple to her neck, is covered in half-healed welts. With the number of time Serena has opened them again, she’ll probably have scars. She’s ruined countless nights of sleep, for herself and Yuzu. She refuses to let anyone pay for new clothes to replace the ones she bleeds on, so she spends hours washing the blood out. It’s an ugly, disgusting thing that she does to herself.

Yuzu covers Serena’s hands with her own. “Serena. I know you don’t do it on purpose. I know you don’t want to do this to yourself. Let’s just try this and see if it helps at all. If it keeps you from getting hurt, if it buys you time to heal a bit, then it’s just worth it in the end.”

Serena gulps. “Can you do it?”

“Of course,” Yuzu says.

Yuzu gets a bowl, a nail clipper, and a nail file. She fills the bowl with warm water and has Serena soak her hands in it. Once her nails soften, Yuzu holds Serena’s hand in her own and carefully starts clipping her nails down. Ordinarily, the sound of the metal breaking the keratin apart, the feeling of the metal pressed so close to Serena’s skin, it’s enough to make Serena want to scream. But right now she thinks that Yuzu could cut her nails forever, as long as Yuzu keeps holding her hand.

When did she come to depend on Yuzu so much? Was it the first time they met, when Yuzu begged Serena to open her eyes, to talk to the people she was trying to destroy? Was it when Serena realized she’d nearly broken Yuzu for good, after bringing her to the Doctor? Was it after that, when Serena hated herself, when she clawed at her own skin, and Yuzu was there to hold her hands and make her stop? Was it somewhere in between that, as they tried to save the world, save their friends, when little moments and infrequent laughs stood out among the days of constant dueling for survival? Did it happen at night, when she and Yuzu shared a bed, one of the few they could find, when they fell asleep curled together for warmth and safety? Was it when they cried on each other’s shoulders? Did Serena just fall deeper and deeper into Yuzu each time she saw Yuzu’s face, her own face and yet not her face? Because Serena has come to realize that Yuzu looks nothing like her. Yuzu’s eyes are gentler, her smile is more natural, her face holds more kindness and openness, even now, than Serena has had in her whole life. Serena doesn’t know how anyone could mistake them for the other.

But Yuzu is teaching Serena, without really trying to, how to be a better person. How to smile at someone and mean it, how to let her laughter be heard, how to listen to someone when they talk. How to be nice to herself. Serena has been hard on herself for years, pushing herself to be better for everyone else, to be noticed. Now Serena wants to be better, but better in different ways, and she wants it so that she can live a better life.

“All done,” Yuzu says.

Serena blinks rapidly, pulling herself out of her daze. Yuzu has both of her hands in her grasp, and she rubbing her fingers over the edges of Serena’s newly shortened nails. With a slight frown, Yuzu takes the nail file and goes over Serena’s pinky nail on her right hand.

“There, that’s better,” Yuzu says, smiling. “It’ll be harder for you to do a lot of damage now.”

Yuzu lets go of Serena’s hands and Serena pulls them closer to herself, rubbing her thumbs over her nails. They’re blunt, shorter than they’ve ever been in her life (as far as she can remember), and Yuzu is right, it’ll be hard for her to make herself bleed with these nails.

“Thank you,” Serena says quietly.

Yuzu dumps the bowl of water, filled with dead nail pieces, into the toilet and flushes it. She tosses Serena’s bloody shirt into the sink, plugs it, and fills it with water. “Wash it in the morning,” Yuzu says. “Let’s go back to bed.”

Yuzu helps Serena to her feet and holds her hand as they walk back to bed. They curl up under the covers, and after a moment of hesitation Serena tucks her head under Yuzu’s chin. Yuzu chuckles and rests her arm over Serena’s waist.

“Sleep well,” Yuzu says.

“I hope so,” Serena answers.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be singing "She Will be Loved" for the rest of the day


End file.
